The Roman Report — 12 October 2026 – 18 October 2026

There is a particular kind of week in football when everything arrives at once — the personal, the political, the poetic — and this is one of them. The Olimpico on Wednesday will be unlike almost anything Roma have experienced in recent memory: a Champions League night, the competition's return to the Foro Italico after seven years, and at the centre of it all, José Mourinho walking back through the tunnel he was bundled out of on a cold January evening in 2024, now wearing a different coat entirely. That image alone would be enough to fill a column. But there is so much more swirling around it, and that is what makes this particular week feel so alive.

Let us start with Mourinho, because it would be dishonest not to. He arrives as Real Madrid's manager — recalled by Florentino Pérez to restore authority to a squad adrift after Ancelotti's exit — and he will make that journey on the coach, past the tennis courts and down via dei Gladiatori, without the roar that used to greet him. He has already said it will be difficult and strange, that he will need to defend himself emotionally. What he asked for was only respect, and respect he will receive, because Roma supporters understand what he gave to this club even if the ending was painful. Luca Fatiga, Mourinho's former assistant at Fenerbahce, said this week that the Friedkin Group will carry one lasting regret — not managing a great coach well in his final year. There is truth in that, and it is worth sitting with, even if the club has since moved forward with genuine purpose. Daniele De Rossi, meanwhile, is due back at the Olimpico four days after Mourinho — two former managers, two complicated departures, one extraordinary week. If you believe football has no sense of theatre, this fixture should disabuse you of that notion.

But the stage requires actors, and Roma's actors have spent the last week giving Gasperini every reason for confidence. Pierluigi Gollini, a man who arrived at this club in January 2025 and played almost nothing — a goalkeeper who once released a rap single called "Rapper with Gloves" and now finds himself preparing to face Real Madrid between the posts at the Olimpico — produced a performance at Como that answered doubts before they could fully form. Four interventions, a commanding presence, and enough composure to steady a defence already managing without Bryan Cristante. His average rating of 7.08 across the Italian press told the story plainly. Svilar's injury was the kind of news that could have rippled through a squad approaching its heaviest month, but Gollini's showing at Como removed that anxiety with quiet authority. He didn't try to be Svilar; he simply did what the moment required. Wednesday is an incomparably larger test, but he arrives at it with momentum and with Gasperini's trust, which counts for a great deal. Marten de Roon, meanwhile, continued to make the sceptics look foolish. Eleven and a half kilometres covered, five tackles, and a crucial intervention on Couto that preserved Roma's shape at a critical moment — all of this from a 35-year-old working his way back to full match fitness. Gasperini brought de Roon to Rome for exactly these kinds of performances, and the Como fixture made his reasoning transparent.

The broader picture around that goalless draw is worth dwelling on. Yes, Donyell Malen's red card changed everything — and the refereeing inconsistency exposed by comparing his dismissal to El Azzouzi's near-identical challenge against Lecce, punished with only a yellow, is a genuine scandal that Italian football's governing bodies cannot simply wave away. Malen has apologised with grace and will return to the starting eleven, beginning on Wednesday, which is the correct outcome. But beneath the controversy, there is something quietly extraordinary happening at this club defensively. Three goals conceded in Serie A. The best defensive record in European football's top five leagues, level with Cagliari. A goal difference of plus eleven in the league, the best in Serie A. Only Arsenal have performed better across all competitions in the calendar year 2026. When Gasparini's critics pointed at those early-season lapses — Gianluca Mancini's moments against Atalanta and Inter — they missed the forest for the trees. Mancini, a man who has spent seven years becoming a genuine son of this city, turned down Inter to stay here. That choice, like Dybala's repeated refusals of more lucrative offers elsewhere, tells you something important about what Gasperini has built.

On Dybala — the figures this week speak to a transformation that Roman radio has spent days trying to articulate. He is Roma's most deployed player this season with 586 minutes, a midfielder now in the truest sense, dropping deep, tracking back, facilitating rather than simply finishing. Moscardelli and others on the airwaves have noted with some unease that his goal return doesn't yet match his involvement, and that concern is legitimate. Dybala himself acknowledged the challenge ahead of Wednesday: they face some of the most decorated teams in the world, but the push from their own people gives Roma something extra. His hope to finish his career here, at Roma, with Roma — offered tentatively but sincerely to Prime Video — should resonate with every supporter who watches him refuse to disappear even on the difficult days. Cicinho, who made the opposite journey from Madrid to Rome nearly twenty years ago, said this week that Dybala wears the number ten in good hands, but that we must make peace with the idea that there will never be another Totti. He is right on both counts, and the honesty of it is part of why the statement lands so well. Another voice with Madrid connections — Nicolò Zaniolo, now at Udinese, the man who scored the goal that gave Roma the Conference League — said simply this week that Gasperini can make Roma contenders in the Scudetto race. Zaniolo, who still supports the club, whose wife is Roman, who is thinking of moving back when his career ends: when he speaks about Roma it carries a kind of ache that only those who have been inside this world can fully understand.

Cicinho offered a note of caution alongside his praise, suggesting the Gasperini project may not yet have reached its peak — that the squad's depth, exposed in that second half against Inter, remains the gap between where Roma are and where they could be. He flagged Manu Koné's retention as essential; he is right about that too, because Koné's engine and intelligence are woven into the way this team functions at its best. Gasperini is preparing for Wednesday with some clarity — Mancini and Hermoso assured in defence, Koné and de Roon confirmed in midfield, Malen leading the attack — but Real Madrid arrive with Mbappé, Valverde, and almost their full complement available despite Saturday's chaos against Villarreal, the Vinicius red card, and Mourinho's furious refusal to attend his own press conference. The Olimpico will be full. The atmosphere will be extraordinary. François Letexier takes charge, carrying his own history with Mourinho from that Benfica night. Everything, as I said, arrives at once. The question now is whether Gollini, Mancini, Dybala and a defence that has conceded three goals all season can hold the line against the most decorated club in the history of European football — and what the answer tells us about just how far Gasperini has brought this Roma in a little over a year.